In death, at old cemeteries at least, the often-tragic life stories of pioneers may be told in elaborately carved grave markers. Point Douglas Cemetery -- a lonely place set in a restored prairie where many early pioneers of what is now a Washington County ghost town are buried -- is no different.
But some stories offered by silent stones require a little more digging. It took several years for Ken Martens to connect a stone at Point Douglas Cemetery with another at Mount Hope Cemetery in Afton, several miles away. Martens, vice president of the Afton Historical Society, is an avid local historian who has spent years studying the county's old graveyards.
In the oldest part of Mount Hope Cemetery, a fieldstone that serves as a child's grave marker has a name that looks as if it's been crudely carved with a nail. The name is Edith O. McDonald, with the last letters scrunched at the end as the carver, perhaps in the throes of grief, ran out of room.
A more conventional stone at Point Douglas Cemetery bears the name Ann McDonald. She was Edith's mother, Martens said.
Edith also had a twin brother, Martens said, but he survived to adulthood. A few years after Edith died, her parents perished while doing something that is taken for granted today: crossing the Mississippi River.
Ann and Thomas McDonald, who lived in Point Douglas, took the ferry to Hastings in mid-winter of 1858. It was perilous business. In the morning, the water was open, but when they returned in the afternoon it had partially frozen.
"At that point, the current sucked the skiff under the ledge of ice, and they all went under," Martens said. Three passengers, including the McDonalds, perished.
Thomas McDonald's body was never recovered, and Ann McDonald's was found downriver about two weeks later, identifiable only by her dress. She was buried at Point Douglas Cemetery.
